Dreams of a Life Page #9

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Again harbouring those secrets,

which I found a bit heart-breaking,

to tell you the truth.

'Really? A cleaner?

No, doesn't...

I mean... I don't know.

I'm just trying to picture her doing

that sort of work and I just can't do it,

knowing the sort of person she was.

I suppose I'm trying to picture her

doing it all dolled up

and immaculately dressed

with her hair and...

With a tight sort of skirt on.

- Pushing an umbrella.

Not an umbrella.

A Hoover around.

- An umbrella!

She didn't know

what life she wanted and the thing is,

the life that she should have had

was staring her in the face all the time.

'I think she wanted

to settle down.

'That was very much the thing

of the crowd that we were in.

'You get married by the time

you're 25, 26, so you have babies.'

With this ring I wed.

'That's the reason

for getting married, to have children.'

'She asked me to once.'

And I thought

maybe she meant like straight away.

And I said, "Oh, no, no, no."

'When you're in your 20s

you don't think about these things.

'The thought of getting married and

having children is off-putting

'when you can go out and have

a few beers and have a good time

'and you've got no responsibilities.'

He said to me once...

When I said, 'Well,

why don't you marry Joyce?

'Why don't you get engaged?"

And he says, "It would be unfair.

"We'd have tinted children.

I don't want tinted children."

He didn't mean that in a racist way.

At the time

there was a lot of racism around

and half-caste kids get

the worst of it, don't they?

My dad said something like,

I saw Martin coming off the train

with a young lady.

"Is she black or something?"

That made me laugh.

When Martin's father died

a few years back

maybe then he started thinking

"Well, I should have done."

Because he wasn't there

to pass judgment, you know.

Maybe that was one of the things

he was thinking.

But you can always think

you could have done things differently.

If she had married Alistair,

I think that he would have made her

a good husband.

Whether she would have made him

a good wife is another story.

But he loved her, desperately.

'I did love her, intensely,

and I think she loved me very deeply.

'And therein lay the problem.

'I don't think she thought

she was capable of loving.

'I don't think she thought

she was capable of being happy.'

Maybe it was just too good for her

in the sense that...

"I want this but is it really me?"

I think she was afraid to...

...live the dream.

'She always believed

'that something would come

and mess it up.

'There'd always be somebody there

to burst the bubble.

'And I kept saying to her,

"'Just enjoy it, just look at the light

shining on that bubble.

The wonderful colours

that are thrown up.

"'Deal with that first and when it bursts,

then deal with that."

'That was part of her problem.

'She had demons that haunted her.'

OK.

'It's really strange.

It's like she never really existed,

'She was a figment of our imagination

and she was a story.

'It was like someone

that we all just made up,

'partly because we let someone

disappear off and die.'

Someone we all knew

and thought we cared about.

If you laid it out in a book form,

you'd be thinking,

"This has got to be fiction."

But this is real life.

The debate about living

in dislocated societies,

not having communities any more,

it's been banging on for ages

and it's just been a sort of theory.

And this is like the living reality of it.

I often thought

about what she was doing

and most of the time I actually thought

that she was already dead.

We all have to think

about how we live our lives a bit more

and stop this crazy existence where

we don't have time for friends or family.

We only have time

to go shopping, ironically.

Wood Green Shopping City!

Even in this 21st century,

you still can fall through the cracks.

She may change the way people think

in a very tiny way.

You know,

"I'll go and check my neighbour."

Or, "Maybe I haven't seen

my friend for a year.

"I'm going to go

and get in contact with them."

So I think

that's what she'll leave behind.

Everybody I've spoken to from then,

they're like,

"Joyce? You're kidding!"

The only person

I think may have been...

One of the closest people in her life

was probably Martin.

I still wish...

I still wish that

they'd got together and married.

Because she'd still be here.

I'm sure she'd still be here.

I wish you'd rung me.

Cos I would have helped

cos I love you.

And this is his 13th century

common discovery,

which I think is a pretty good record.

# Watch me fall from grace

# Disappear with no trace

# As I try to erase you

# Feel the pain and watch me bleed

# Surely this is not what I need

# Shut out everyone

# And watch me run

# Lay me under the sun

# So cold I have become

# Now that I have been undone

# Watch me fall from grace

# Disappear with no trace

# As I try to erase you

# Feel the pain and watch me bleed

# Surely this is not what I need #

Now we,

as people of South Africa,

respect each and every one of you.

We admire you.

And above all we love you.

# Oh, won't you tell me

# Won't you tell me

# Oh, won't you tell me

# Tell me now

# Oh, I need you to tell me

# I want you to tell me

# Tell me, tell me, tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me now

# Tell me

# Tell me, tell me, tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me

# Tell me, tell me, tell me

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

# Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me now

# Ooh, ooh, ooh

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

# Speak to me and tell me now

# Tell me

# Yeah

# Ooh, ooh, oh, oh, ohh

# Tell me, tell me

# Oh, yeah

# Oh, won't you tell me

# Oh, tell me

# Won't you tell me

# Yeah, yeah... ##

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